Tag: Two Lines Press

John Barth—Fiction: the Sot-Weed Factor (1960), Giles Goat-Boy (1966), Lost in the Funhouse(1968), LETTERS(1979); Non-fiction: the Friday Book (1984), Further Fridays (1995), Final Fridays (2012)

Robert Coover – The Origin of the Brunists ( 1966), The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (1968), and The Public Burning (1976)

William Gaddis—The Recognitions (1955), JR (1975), a Frolic of His Own (1994)

William Gass—Fiction: Omensetter’s Luck (1966), Willie Master’s Lonesome Wife (1968), the Tunnel (1995); Non-fiction: Fiction and the Figures of Life (1970), the World Within the Word (1978), Finding a Form: Essays (1997), Test of Time (2002), a Temple of Texts (2006), Life Sentences (2012)

In 2013, I published “The Hysterical Realism Reading List” in an attempt to share what I began to see as body of works that seemed related based on features that included innovative narrative techniques, flamboyant use of style, encyclopedic nature, and massive scale. These books fascinated me because they challenged me as a reader. I often turned to supplemental texts to shapen my understanding of the primary sources as well fiction in general. My academic background is in creative writing and I didn’t have the opportunity to dive into a deep study of the domain of innovative literature. In many ways the secondary sources added to this list have been an academic program of sort, one that allowed me to gain a greater understanding of innovative fiction and stylistics. The inclusion of secondary sources is where you will note the greatest growth of the reading list.

I have used bold to indicate additions to this list. Many of the books were lightning bolts that brilliantly illuminated my mind. My motivation here is to share what excites me and has proven valuable in my reading. I easily could have included every academic book about included authors, but I have decided against doing that. Between academic data bases, search engines, and Amazon—it’s pretty easy to find Steven Moore’s book on William Gaddis. The texts included tend to be those hidden gems that aren’t directly apparent because some algorithm hasn’t made the connection yet.

I have also included a “third wave” of writers that include Adam Levin and Michael Helm. These writers started publishing after 2010 and seem to be influenced by second wave authors—and I’m sure first wave authors as well. This group is also very much tied to hypereducated cis white males from (upper) middle class backgrounds.

Identity politics is the elephant in the room with this list. So much of this genre is by heterosexual white men. I’m going to openly acknowledge it. What originally inspired me to study hysterical realism is how the writers used language to bend the representation of reality, to bend the sentence to a point of almost breaking. These were writers I knew and found in bookstores. I went to what I knew at that time, to those who were celebrated as being innovative—so many of them are white men. While I started there, my goal is to move beyond–not because white is bad or wrong but because there is much, much more.

(Kiini Ibura Salaam)

I have put a concerted effort into reading widely and reviewing books by innovative authors with diverse backgrounds. Since the original reading list’s publication in 2013, I have written about Erika Wurth, Angela Woodward, Ramón Saizarbitoria, Eloy Urroz, Marie NDiaye, and Lindsey Drager. All are wildly different writers that have taught me about the potential of storytelling. Presses like Dalkey Archive, FC2, Dzanc Press, and Two Lines Press consistently release books that challenge and captivate me. There are also plenty of writers that I have joyously read but haven’t written about, such as Amber Sparks, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Susan Steinberg, Julio Cortázar, Fiona Maazel, and Melanie Rae Thon. While I don’t consider them hysterical realists—they are all innovative writers that I have enjoyed. And there are writers who I have barely had a chance to read, giants of writing like Lidia Yuknavitch, Julián Ríos, Octavia Butler, and Abdourahman A. Waberi. I subscribe to Conjunctions literary magazine in search of new voices and follow writers like John Madera–check out The Big Other— who overwhelm me with reading lists. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

I can’t wait to start this. Hilbig’s The Females (translated by Isabel Fargo Cole) will be coming out this November (2018) from Two Lines Press, who regularly publishes amazing translated works. A few weeks ago, I read The Tidings of the Trees, which reminded me of the psychological isolation in Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Interested in how this matches up as I am new to Hilbig. Thanks to Veronica Esposito and the team at Two Lines for sending me the ARC.